Add employee search functionality with pagination

[kousen]

Summary

Implement comprehensive employee search functionality to allow users to find employees by various criteria with pagination support.

Requirements

• Search by name: Allow partial matching of first name, last name, or full name
• Search by department: Filter employees by department name
• Search by salary range: Find employees within specified minimum and maximum salary ranges
• Pagination support: Handle large result sets efficiently with page/size parameters

Technical Details

API Endpoint

• Endpoint: GET /api/employees/search
• Query Parameters:
  • name (optional): Employee name (partial matching)
  • department (optional): Department name
  • minSalary (optional): Minimum salary filter
  • maxSalary (optional): Maximum salary filter
  • page (default: 0): Page number for pagination
  • size (default: 20): Number of results per page

Implementation Tasks

• Create EmployeeSearchController with search endpoint
• Implement service layer methods with proper error handling
• Add database queries with JPA criteria or custom repository methods
• Include input validation for search parameters
• Add comprehensive unit and integration tests
• Update API documentation

Acceptance Criteria

• Users can search employees by name with partial matching
• Users can filter by department and salary range
• Results are paginated with configurable page size
• API returns proper HTTP status codes and error messages
• All endpoints are thoroughly tested
• API documentation is updated

Labels

enhancement, backend, api, good-first-issue